South Africa English news | South Africa, Latest News & Live Updates in English | English News (Latest English News) at Lokmattimes.com

Johannesburg, July 24 The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has announced that it will approach the court to postpone the local government polls, scheduled to be held on October 27, because of the raging Covid-19 pandemic."The Commission notes the rational and central thesis of the report that community immunity through mass vaccination must be considered as a desirable step in the conduct of a safe, free and fair election in the republic," Xinhua news agency quoted IEC Chairperson Glen Mashinini as saying on Friday."The Commission will urgently brief Senior Counsel to launch an application in a court of competent jurisdiction to seek judicial authorisation to conduct the election outside of the constitutionally prescribed time periods," he added.Mashinini said they will postpone upcoming voter registration weekend scheduled for July 31 and August 1 to a later date and ask the courts to grant the election date not later than February 2022."The Commission appeals for a spirit of calm, support and working together among all stakeholders, in the interest of stability and certainty on the one hand, and at the indispensable need for the preservation of constitutional electoral democracy in the Republic," the IEC Chair added.In response to the announcement, South Africa's second-largest party in Parliament, Democratic Alliance (DA), said it doesn't support the postponement."As the DA, we will be monitoring this process (to postpone the elections) very closely, because it has been our contention that the local government elections must go ahead to give South Africans an opportunity to elect the local leaders as per the Constitution," the party's spokesperson Siviwe Gwarube said late on Friday.The party, which started campaigning in May, will be studying the submission of the IEC to the court to specifically look at the mechanism that IEC seeks to use to postpone the election, the spokesperson added.South Africa's local government elections are held every five years and elect councillors of metropolitan, district and local municipalities.Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

South AfricaFOLLOW

South africa, Latest News

Tokyo, July 31 Forward Vandana Katariya scored a hat-trick as the Indian women's hockey team struggled to put ... ...

Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Friday confirmed the Proteas men's outbound tour to Sri Lanka from September 2-14. It will consist of three ODIs and three T20Is, all to be played at the R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium in Colombo. ...

Chairman of Rajya Sabha M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday expressed concern over about 90 members of the House being denied opportunities to raise issues of public importance even after their notices were admitted by the Chairman due to persistent disrupt ...

Johannesburg, July 29 South African National Parks (SANParks) is beefing up its fight against poaching by dehorning rhinos ... ...

Indian golfer Diksha Dagar has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics 2020 after South Africa's Paula Reto withdrew, and Austria decided not to make a reallocation for their golfer Sarah Schober. ...

Johannesburg, July 25 South Africa is ready to reopen schools from Monday as Covid-19 figures are reducing and ... ...

Belfast, July 25 South Africa prepared themselves for the T20 World Cup with a whitewash of Ireland as ... ...

Johannesburg, July 24 The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has announced that it will approach the court ... ...